


Safe House

by spaceh0und



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gorbeau House Shenanigans, Snow, oof brain broke can't think of more tags I'll fix this later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 13:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17122400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceh0und/pseuds/spaceh0und
Summary: Whilst living at Gorbeau House with Valjean, Cosette gets to have fun in the snow for the first time since leaving the Thenardier's inn





	Safe House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ineedsomecyanide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineedsomecyanide/gifts).



> I'm so sorry this is late!! I'm also really sorry that it's unfinished still but I didn't want to make you wait any longer without a gift! I'll finish it up as soon as I can I promise! I hope you like what there is so far!

It was Christmas Eve when Cosette first met the strange man who was to take her away from the Thenardiers. It had all happened fairly quickly. She still wasn’t sure quite how or why it had happened like it did, but she was certainly very glad that it had. The man had rescued her from the cruel Waterloo Inn as if sent from God himself and had protected her like her own guardian angel. For the first time in a long while, Cosette had felt safe.  
The two of them had left Montfermeil together soon after. At some point along their journey, Cosette must have fallen asleep, for when she awoke she was in a bed in a room with the kind old man.   
Some time had passed since then. The room, she had discovered, was where she was to live with the man. She liked that idea very much and it hadn’t taken them both long to settle into this new way of living.

***

Cosette still had many questions about what was going to happen next.

“Will Madame and Monsieur Thenardier find us here?” she had asked him after waking from a particularly bad nightmare. In her nightmare, M. Thenardier had chased her through the woods while she carried a heavy bucket of water, except he had been a fox with sharp teeth snapping at her heels and he had been much faster than she.   
The man had looked sort of sad then. But only for a moment. After that he looked scary, making Cosette think for a moment of a great bear that one might encounter in the woods in stories. She didn’t feel scared of him though.   
“No,’ he had said in his low gentle voice, ‘they won’t find us here. You won’t ever have to see those people again.”

Next time Cosette dreamed of M. Thenardier, she wasn’t scared anymore. There was a large bear in her dream who chased the fox away then picked her bucket of water up in his jaws and let her ride on his back through the woods. 

***

The rooms she shared with the man were small and not particularly impressive, but still she found them quite beautiful. There was a large window inside the main room and sometimes the man lifted her up to look out of it so she had a better view of the street below. He was very strong and it felt like he could maybe hold her in his arms forever if he wanted to. On clear days the sun would shine through the window and she would sing joyfully to her doll Catherine and the man as they played.  
This man, Cosette decided, was what a father was. She must have been right because the first time she called him papa, he smiled in a way that lit up his face brighter than the lanterns outside.

Her papa wouldn’t let her sweep or do any other chores around the house. Chores were all she had ever done for the Thenardiers so at first this confused her. She very quickly got used to it though. Instead of doing chores, she was allowed to play with Catherine and whatever else she could find around the house that could be repurposed into a toy. Her papa also taught her to read. He was a kind and patient teacher and Cosette was eager to learn so the two of them made fast progress. Once when he was teaching her the spelling of a new word, she looked up at his face and saw a soft smile that was almost angelic. Perhaps her papa was an angel. It would make perfect sense after all. 

***

Cosette’s papa would never go out in daylight, he preferred to go out in the evening after the sun had started to set. She had asked him once why they never went out in the day and he had given her a small sad-looking smile and told her gently, “It’s safer to go out in the dark, and better for walking.” As far as Cosette was concerned, that was all the explanation that was needed.   
Her favourite evenings were when her papa took her out with him. They would walk for an hour or so while he held her hand and they talked about all sorts of things. Some days she would bring Catherine too and the doll would be included in their conversation.   
Whenever they encountered some poor soul begging on their walks, her papa would press a coin into their hand. “Not everyone has enough money to eat Cosette,’ he had explained, ‘we have to look out for each other, especially in the winter.” Cosette had nodded and listened closely to his explaination. It sounded very wise. She liked the idea of people looking out for each other. The Thenardiers had never looked out for her but maybe they were the exception to this rule and not the norm. 

***

One morning Cosette woke to a cold room and a bright light coming in through the window. When she got out of bed, her papa was already putting another log on the fire that had burnt low overnight.   
On seeing her awake, he smiled and gestured towards the window. “Look, it snowed while you were asleep  
Cosette ran over to the window in excitement before lifting her arms so her papa could pick her up. He laughed softly as he bent down to lift her then stood up again to give her a better view of the street below. The snow really was beautiful. Everything it touched was bright and white and beautiful and sparkled like shards of glass when the light caught it.   
She had seen snow before in Montfermeil, but snow seemed a lot more fun when you had a warm bed and a fire and didn’t have to go out in the cold without a proper coat to collect water.  
“Can we go out and see it?”


End file.
